


Dreams

by Miss_Peletier



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: (or at least close to canon compliant), Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 11:29:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7359448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Peletier/pseuds/Miss_Peletier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abigail Griffin doesn’t sleep often, and she doesn’t sleep well. </p><p>But when she does, she dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

     Abigail Griffin and sleep had a long, tragic history.

     Back on the Ark, when her family was whole, she’d been able to drift off easily. Of course there were rough patches, nights that ended without a goodnight kiss – what family didn’t have them? – but more often than not, she fell asleep in her husband’s arms with the promise of tomorrow on their lips, a guarantee of a life spent with the two people she loved most.

     With Jake floated and Clarke imprisoned, that promise was shattered.

     The bed she’d shared with him felt more like a prison cell than a mattress, so for a few months she relegated herself to the small couch in the living room. But even there she found no refuge: the early morning hours came and went, and she watched them pass with tears in her eyes and a lead weight in her heart.

     During the day, she had to be strong. She had to be a Councilor and a doctor. She had to be someone her people could look up to and trust. She couldn’t afford to break in front them, because they wouldn’t understand how to put her back together when she was the one who was supposed to fix them.

     So at night, alone and desolate, she broke apart. And in the morning she glued the jagged edges of her heart back in place and faced another day as Jake Griffin’s widow and the mother of a delinquent, completely adrift and forever separated from the life she knew and loved.

                                                      ***

     When Clarke was sent to Earth, she started looking at the stars.

     Perhaps “started” wasn’t the right word: it wasn’t that she’d never bothered observing them before, but now their importance had shifted enough for her to spend the early mornings in front of the small window in their living room instead of tossing and turning on the couch. She felt herself discovering them again, seeing them for the first time as she had when she was just a little girl.

      Stars weren’t just glowing pinpricks of light in the distance to her, they weren’t just something to be observed when she was feeling particularly sentimental. Now, when she looked out across the reaches of endless space, she realized her daughter could be staring up at the same sky. That somehow, paradoxically, they could be connected through these orbs of burning hydrogen that also kept them apart. While they were thousands and thousands of miles from each other, they saw the same stars. Somehow, she found solace in that thought as she watched the transmissions from the wrist bands terminate and chaos explode around her.

 _May we meet again. I love you,_  she thought as she gazed out across the unreachable expanses of the galaxy, and she drowsily wondered if her daughter could be thinking the same.

      As they sparkled behind her eyelids, Abby realized they were more than just stars. They were her hope.

                                                           ***

     When she and Clarke were reunited, she was able to close her eyes. For the first time in years, Abby Griffin found herself sleeping through the night. She’d almost forgotten what it felt like to drift off instead of passing out, to wake up well-rested instead of ragged.

     But with rest came nightmares.

     They weren’t something she could talk about, largely because words fell short of an adequate description. How could she explain what it felt like to re-live her husband’s final moments? The moment when Clarke’s wristband had terminated and her vitals flatlined?

      She could describe what  _happened_  in them, what moments they were composed of, because she’d lived through them. But there was no way to explain the feeling of helplessness that crept over her when her brain decided it was time to start playing that film reel of her worst memories. The sense that she was drowning in failure and that she’d doomed everyone she loved formed a fatal symphony with the pounding of her heart and pulsing of blood through her veins, and she found herself unable to conduct the cacophonous orchestra in her head.

     So when Marcus said he heard her screaming in her sleep when he was on patrol and asked her the next morning if she was all right, she had nothing worthwhile to say in return. Her “I’m fine” almost died on her lips, her smile never quite met her eyes, and he didn’t look convinced. But to his credit, he didn’t press her further.

     She didn’t know that he had nightmares, too. That his own inner demons stirred behind his eyelids when they closed, and he saw himself condemning  hundreds of innocent people whose only sins had been breathing the air on the Ark.

      She said “I’m fine” and walked away, completely unaware of how well he understood the personal hell in which she was trapped.

      She didn’t know he awoke most nights in a panic, his shirt cemented to his chest with sweat, an orchestra of horrors playing an endless show that reverberated around every corner of his head.  She didn’t know how many times he had to relive his mother’s final moments the way she relived her husband’s, and she wasn’t aware of the guilt that wracked him for hours, days, and weeks after he opened his eyes.

     She couldn’t have known.

     She wouldn’t have asked.

     He never would have told her.

     After all, he had only just become “Marcus” to her, and any emotional territory for the two of them was wholly uncharted and avoided completely. Their relationship was all fault lines and houses of cards, and they both realized one wrong move could bring it all crashing down.

     They tried not to make wrong moves.

     It was only by random chance that she heard the screams coming from the northwest corner of the camp one night. As Chancellor, she’d been worried for her people. As Doctor Griffin, she prepared herself to treat a victim. As Abby, she fought back her own fears.

     And as all three, she was shocked when she found the cries came not from a man being tortured by grounders, but from a man being tortured by his own mind.

     She asked him if he was all right. He had nothing worthwhile to say in return. His “I’m fine” all but died on his lips, and his smile never quite met his eyes. She couldn’t make herself look convinced, but she wouldn’t press him further.

                                                       ***

      When Clarke left, sleep abandoned her.

      At first she let herself believe it was because of her leg, but she soon acknowledged her pain had an emotional layer. How many nights had she looked out at the stars and imagined Clarke staring up at them? How many nights had she hoped they’d be reunited under those skies? Now here they were, both on the same ground and in the same place, but she couldn’t see her daughter. They could very well both be looking up at the same stars, but they may as well have been millions of miles apart yet again.

     Her heart hurt for the awful things her daughter had been forced to do, and her leg hurt from the awful things that had been done to  _her_. She was in too much agony to close her eyes for long, so she wandered Arkadia half-numb with pain and looking for ways to be useful in the dead of night.

     But later, as her leg healed, she came to understand that sleep was a blessing she couldn’t afford. The Chancellor was needed at too many hours and in too many places, and that work was only compounded by her tasks as a doctor. So she re-learned how to manage with a few hours here and there and how to beat back the haze of exhaustion that clouded her every move.

      The silver lining about getting less rest was that there was less time for her to succumb to the nightmares that had plagued her before the irradiation of Mount Weather. But now, when she did find the time to lie down, she didn’t see her husband’s final moments or awake in a panic from realizing her daughter could be dead. Her dreams were more ordinary, mundane, and sometimes even enjoyable.

       On occasion, her subconscious would gift her with memories of her childhood, her parents, of growing up on the Ark, of her cheerful days with Jake and Clarke. When she awoke from those with the images of her old medical textbooks and her mother’s smile, she felt a keen sense of nostalgia: everything was brighter and fresher on Earth, but there were times when she wished she could return to the old familiarity of the Ark and all the distant memories it felt like she’d left drifting in space.

     On others, she’d be back in the Council chambers: more often than not, those dreams would see her debating with Theolonius or Marcus on some issue relating to their people’s survival. After those, she allowed herself a brief smile upon awakening: so much had changed since then, and she felt hopeful when she reflected on how far they’d come.  Irrefutable evidence of that change came in the third category of her dreams: Marcus Kane.

     It was hard for her to pinpoint when he’d snuck into her subconscious world as more than just a colleague – she guessed sometime in the weeks that followed Mount Weather and Clarke’s departure, when he was by her side almost  _constantly_  – but since then he’d stubbornly refused to leave. At night she’d see memories and moments of him too vivid to have ever been real, little alternate realities that her mind created to help her accept a truth that she hadn’t had the time to fully acknowledge. Not yet. But every time she woke up with her lips and neck tingling from where his mouth touched her skin in some other world, her fingers twitching as she recalled running them through his hair and lacing them between his own and digging her nails into his shoulders, her body on fire from the remnants of a universe created entirely in her head, she came a little bit closer.

      There was one night that she remembered with distinction, one story that was forever bookmarked in the novel composed of the tales her brain told her when she closed her eyes. 

       It was nothing erotic. It was nothing from which she awoke in a heated sweat. She knew it was nothing that should have merited recollection given the content of her mind’s other midnight musings, but it stuck in the forefront of her memory as solidly as if it had been glued there.

      In her dream, she had gone to see Marcus while he was on patrol. Clarke was home, the camp was quiet, the night was cloudless, clear, and calm. Above them the galaxies spanned for miles, glinting and glowing across the sky and into an unreachable oblivion. There was no ring on her finger, there was no ring around her neck, and there was a pin on Marcus’s jacket.

      The moon provided just enough light to see him by, just enough clarity for her to observe his smile as he gazed up at the shining lights. He was brighter to her than the combined power of all the stars in the sky.

      “It’s beautiful,” he remarked, his voice soft against the warm summer wind. “The pictures never did it justice.”

      “No, they didn’t,” she agreed. They were both silent for a moment, both lost in the beauty of the world, then he continued.

      “I never thought we’d see this,” he said, his voice riddled with awe. “Back on the Ark, when I looked at the stars…I just saw them as the outside world. As a part of life. It never crossed my mind that they could be breathtaking if I were standing in another world.”

      Abby nodded in the darkness. She couldn’t help but recount the myriad of things she never thought she’d see, much less the feelings she thought she’d kissed good-bye forever when she plummeted to the ground.

 _There are a few things I never thought I’d feel this way about,_  she thought, stealing a glance at him again and feeling her cheeks grow warm.

     She saw a shooting star and grinned.

     “Make a wish,” she whispered.

     She looked over at Marcus to see a confused scowl flit across his moonlit face, which he quickly replaced with a bemused smile.

     “Is there a reason I’d do that, Abby?” he asked, genuine curiosity dancing behind his brown eyes.

      Still whispering, she explained the tradition to him. Her parents, being one generation closer to the ground and more connected with its mythology, had insisted on telling her that shooting stars had been a sign of good luck back when their people had walked the Earth. She often wondered if they’d known she might have the chance to see one someday.

      Marcus was quiet for a moment as he considered her story. The Marcus Kane of old would have ridiculed her for bringing up such outdated beliefs, for indulging in such fantastical superstitions. He would have looked up at the glowing sky and seen the lights, but not the stars.

      Her Marcus was different, softer, kinder.

      Her Marcus saw the stars.

       “I think I’ll pass,” he said, tearing his gaze from the sky to look at her instead.

       “Why?” she asked, all his confusion transferring to her with that simple statement. 

       “Well…” he started, then exhaled softly and shifted his weight from his right to his left foot, rocking back and forth as if caught under the weight of the words he was about to say. “I already have everything I’ve wished for.”

       Something in his tone hinted he wasn’t talking about the Chancellorship, and she confirmed her suspicions when she saw the anxiety in his eyes, the nervous rigidity of his normally relaxed posture. The meaning of his words swept over her like a tidal wave, pulling her under and taking her breath away.

      How long had he felt this way? How long had she? How long had they orbited each other like the planets they now observed, going about their separate lives, being pulled by opposing gravities while fighting intertwined desires?

      She reached her hand toward his and laced their fingers together under the dim light, gently pulling him closer until they were facing each other.

      “I never said I wished for anything,” she whispered, reaching her other hand upward to trail it down the side of his face. His smile, radiant and pure, nearly made her heart burst.

      She kissed him and kissed him until her lungs burned, until they both gasped for air. She kissed him until her lips ached, letting herself get lost in the sensation of his arms around her waist, the pressure of his mouth against her own. The friction of his beard against the soft skin of her neck gave her goosebumps, and she shivered even though the night was warm.

       They broke apart and came back together as quickly as they possibly could. They were hungry, passionate, two people starved for each other who were finally, after wars and heartbreaks and almost losing each other time after time after time, allowed to eat. Her hands jumped from his neck to thread themselves in his silky hair, anchoring him to her, and a slight moan escaped her as his hands gently found their way from her hips to slide underneath her shirt to press her even tighter against him. They wanted to be as close to each other as they could in this moment, this moment that the stars had sent them hurtling toward, this moment that was absolutely everything.

      She was the match, he was the gasoline, and when they met they became a blazing, roaring inferno.

      They knew they had valleys of kisses to make up for, mountains of words they hadn’t said to each other, and this kiss was only the beginning of their journey.

      And all around them the stars shimmered in the night sky, flickering remnants of the people they once were and the place they’d once lived.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place entirely in reality after Abby wakes up from her dream, and is set during the months before S3 that I headcanon were filled with slow burn tension.

      In the real world she remembered how she’d jolted awake under the council room’s fluorescent lights, shoving herself into a sitting position against the soft leather of the couch. She dimly remembered having met with Marcus to discuss sending search parties for Clarke and maintaining peace with the grounder clans, but she wasn’t quite sure if those conversations had taken place or if she’d imagined them. 

      The dull sound of a marker being dragged across the board in the next room meant Marcus was still working, even though the clock informed her it was two in the morning. 

      With a surge of guilt, she realized she’d been asleep for over three hours. Marcus had been undoubtedly been working the entire time, and she’d done nothing but pass out on the couch.

      “You should get some rest,” she said, her voice thick as she fought to clear her head.

      “Democracy doesn’t rest, Abby,” he responded, as the muted squeak of the marker made it obvious he was still writing. She rubbed her temples vigorously, hoping the motion would help her come back to reality. A throbbing pain had blossomed in her head, and she couldn’t tell if she had that dream or her own body to blame. Probably both.

      “Then why’d you let me fall asleep?” she asked. 

      The question was pointed, but there was no malice behind her words. It wasn’t the first time she’d fallen asleep during a meeting, and it wouldn’t be the last, but somehow Marcus always managed to finish what they started. There was only room for gratitude in her heart, as far as Marcus Kane was concerned.

      “I’m the one who should have been taking care of all this,” she continued. “I should have helped you.”

       He laughed quietly. “Democracy doesn’t rest, but you needed to. Besides, I enjoy ‘taking care of all this.’ I’m glad you let me.” 

      The squeaking stopped, and she turned her head to find him standing in the open doorway with a small smile. 

      “I finished the plans for Bellamy and his team. I’ll go over them with him tomorrow, and if all goes well they should be able to head out the next day.”

      She nodded, fighting the surge of anxiousness that came with sending out search parties for Clarke. While she knew Bellamy wanted to find Clarke just as badly as she did, the wait for his team’s return was agonizing and painful. 

      Occasionally she wished she could go with them outside the walls and look for her daughter herself. Maybe if she were sitting in the back of a car, feeling the world rush past her in shades of blurred green and brown, she could let go of everything that troubled her. Maybe she could leave her troubles behind when they sped away.

      But she knew the second the car stopped, her worries would crawl right back to her. The thought of going on a search team was a fantasy and nothing more: she’d wait in Arkadia for their return with her heart in her throat, as she always did. 

      She’d build an iron fence around her emotions so the despair she felt when they returned empty-handed couldn’t fight its way into her soul. She’d continue to be the doctor-Chancellor, the woman who put people back together even when she felt like falling apart.

      “I’m planning on leaving tomorrow afternoon, after I can talk to him,” Marcus added, leaning against the doorframe.

      “What? Why?” Abby asked, her pulse skyrocketing. 

       There were many things about her feelings for Marcus that she couldn’t let herself admit yet, but she knew she needed him here, inside Arkadia, when the search team got back. She knew that if the first thing she saw was Bellamy Blake’s lifeless, defeated stare, the second thing she wanted to see was Marcus Kane.

      “I’m going to meet with Indra. Abby, we talked about this,” he said, a hint of worry seeping into his soft tone. “We talked about it earlier tonight, actually. Are you all right?”

      “I’m fine,” she answered, pushing herself off the couch. She realized the extent of her lie the second she was fully vertical: a wave of dizziness shoved her off-balance, and she found herself leaning against the table for support. Her eyes slipped shut for a fraction of a second and her breathing slowed as she tried to regain her balance, and she hoped Marcus hadn’t noticed the lapse in her composure.

      He had, of course. Marcus noticed everything.

      “Abby, what’s wrong?” he asked as he moved toward her, clearly alarmed. “Do you need me to get Jackson?”

       “No!” she exclaimed. “Marcus. It’s two in the morning. Don’t wake Jackson. I’m fine.”

        “Is it your leg? I’m sure he wouldn’t be upset if I wake him up, he’d be worried about you too –” 

        “It’s not my leg,” she said abruptly, cutting him off. That much was true – her leg wasn’t throbbing – but she had realized the probable cause of her symptoms in mid-sentence. Between taking care of a flood of patients in Medical and meeting with him directly afterward, she hadn’t eaten all day. In fact…she didn’t remember if she had eaten dinner the day before, either. 

      If she weren’t so off-balance, she would have laughed at herself: there she was, the camp’s most experienced doctor, and she wasn’t even taking her own advice.

      “What is it, then?” he asked gently, imploring her to let him help. Abby sighed. She hadn’t wanted to tell him what was wrong, but she knew fully well she wouldn’t be able to keep it from him.

       “It’s nothing to be worried about. I didn’t eat anything today, but that’s not—“

       “Why didn’t you eat anything, Abby?” 

       His voice was verging on hysteria, edging into the same territory Jackson’s did when he realized a few weeks ago that she hadn’t even been  _attempting_  to stay off her injured leg. 

       “Because I was a little  _busy_  today, Marcus!” she snapped. “It wasn’t intentional!”

       They were both quiet for a few moments, letting the silence expand around them. A mixture of exhaustion, hunger, and weariness had sharpened the edges of her words before they left her mouth, and she realized with a flash of guilt that they had come out harsher than she intended.

       “Marcus, I –“ she started to apologize, but the floor started shifting underneath her again and she had to grip the table harder just to stay upright. She felt a hand on her arm and realized he was steadying her, holding her up. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

        He gave a small, short laugh in response. 

        “I know,” he said. 

        It was then that she realized how close he was standing, how his face was mere inches from hers. He was close enough that she could feel his warmth, could sense his breath with every rise and fall of his chest as he looked at her with the expression of concern she’d come to know so, so well. Their eyes locked on to each other’s and didn’t let go, and for the moment the only tangible things in the world to Abby Griffin were the table she was gripping with all her might and the warm, constant pressure of Marcus Kane’s hand on her upper arm.

      There were so many things that she didn’t know. For one, she didn’t know how he felt. She didn’t know if now was the right time for anything, she didn’t know why she kept dreaming about him, she didn’t know if she knew what she wanted, or if she was scared that being this intoxicatingly close to him made it a little too obvious what she’d wanted all along. 

      But she knew how he was looking at her right now, she knew how he had looked at her on the way back from Mount Weather, she knew there had to be a reason he kept haunting her when she found a moment to close her eyes. 

      And she knew that if she moved just a little bit closer, leaned in, angled her chin upward, and let her eyes slip shut…

      The floor moved again, and despite his hand and the table she nearly fell over. He caught her with both hands and set her back down on the couch, but the spell was broken. 

      “Wait here,” he said sternly, as if he truly believed she was going to try to get up again. She heard a backpack being unzipped and then zipped again, and a minute later Marcus returned with a small bag in his hands.

      He only kept his pack in the Council Room.

     “Marcus,” she sighed deeply, removing her ponytail holder and running her fingers through her hair. “I’m not going to eat your rations.”

     “I’ll be fine,” he insisted with every ounce of stubbornness she’d come to expect from him. “You need them more than I do. Now, come on.” He gestured for her to get up, but stepped forward to help her if she needed it.

     “Where are we going?” she asked, faintly amused.

     “Don’t you agree you could use some fresh air?” he asked, his eyebrows shooting toward his hairline. “I don’t think being stuck in here is doing you any favors.”

      The rational part of her felt like rolling her eyes and saying “Marcus, it’s  _two in the morning,_ ” but as a doctor, she couldn’t quite argue. His continual concern and pleading and selflessness had rusted the portion of her brain in charge of making her argue with him, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been able to go outside without a walkie-talkie buzzing and various people needing various things from her. 

       So instead of being rational, she let him guide her off the couch and outside into the early morning air, his arm around her waist and her hand clutching his shoulder. The few guards that were dispersed around the camp at that hour looked at them strangely but didn’t make a comment (save for Monty Green, who shot Marcus a grin and an enthusiastic thumbs-up when Abby wasn’t looking.) 

      They sat down next to the unlit fire pit, and Marcus immediately shoved his rations into her hands again.

     “Eat,” he ordered, as the plastic bag crinkled against her skin.

     “Hey,” she smirked as she elbowed him playfully, feeling her mood and condition improve with every second she spent outside. “Last I checked, I was the Chancellor. Not you.”

      He laughed, a real, deep laugh that turned all the guards’ heads toward them.

     “Well then, as your Councilor and advisor, I’m  _advising_  you to eat,” he retorted. There was something wonderfully damning about the way he looked at her, especially when he was happy, and she felt her resolve wearing down again.

      “Please, Abby,” he added, and she was a goner.

      “All right,” she said, opening the bag. “Thank you.”

      The more she ate, the better she felt. Her headache subsided quickly and so did her dizziness, so she found herself taking in more and more of the nighttime scenery. It had rained for the past few days, and the air was still wet with the lingering moisture. The scent of rain hung all around the camp, but the sky was clear and the stars were shining. 

      It was then that she remembered a part of their conversation earlier that she hadn’t thought to consider when it happened. She’d had too much on her mind and had had enough to worry about in keeping herself upright. But now, under the moonlight, she had a chance to think.

_“I’m sure Jackson wouldn’t be upset if I woke him up, he’d be worried about you too –”_

_Too._  He’d be worried about you,  _too_. 

      Although it was late and she was exhausted, Abby found her spirits lifting higher than they had throughout the day. On some level she already knew Marcus cared about her, she had figured he was affected when she wasn’t feeling well, but having verbal confirmation of that was certainly nice. She felt her face grow warm and hoped he couldn’t see her blushing.

      As she glanced over at him under the moonlit sky, she was suddenly reminded of her dream. There were so many similarities: a clear night, his happiness, the contentment and safety she felt in his presence. And yet, there were differences: she was wearing the pin, not him. There was a ring on her finger, and another around her neck. Clarke wasn’t home. 

      He was leaving tomorrow, down one bag of rations and quite a bit of sleep, and she didn’t know when he’d be back.

      “Marcus?” she asked, her voice trembling in a way she couldn’t quite understand and hoped he didn’t hear.

      “Hmmm?” he responded, still looking up at the sky.

      “When are you coming back from meeting with Indra? I don’t remember what we agreed on when we talked about it before.”

       He looked away from the stars then, meeting her eyes as best as he could in the deepening darkness. As usual, he knew exactly what she needed to hear.

      “I’ll be back by the time Bellamy and his team return,” he said. Abby breathed a silent sigh of relief. Facing whatever was in store for her when they came home would be much easier with him around.

      But Clarke had already taken part of her heart outside of Arkadia’s walls, and as she looked at him under the stars, she felt ready to admit that when he left tomorrow he’d be taking another.

     “Be careful,” she said.

      “I always am.” 

      “I know.”

      They let the scenery swallow them for a bit, staring up at the shining dots of light they once lived amongst. And then, something happened that made Abby’s heart stop in her chest.

      She saw a shooting star.

     “Make a wish,” Marcus said, his words escaping into the open air before she could even get a syllable past her lips. The edges of her mouth turned upward of their own accord, and she couldn’t stop her heart from racing. 

     There were things, in this real, tangible world, that she wanted.

     She thought about Clarke.

     She thought about him.

     She closed her eyes.

     She made a wish.


End file.
